Chilvers Coton is a recurring setting for worship, mourning, and family reunion in the novel, centred on All Saints Church and its churchyard. For Sunday Small, the walk there as a workhouse child offers a welcome interval beyond institutional routine; later, the churchyard becomes the place where grief for Daisy Branning is acknowledged and where Sunday and Tom Branning prepare to ask Reverend Edgar Lockett to marry them. The location’s significance lies in this movement from a child’s brief experience of freedom to adult acts of remembrance and belonging.

Setting and the workhouse children’s visits

The route to All Saints Church gives Sunday’s Sunday routine a distinctive shape. After lunch, the girls are inspected by Miss Frost; those who pass muster are marched through the Bull Ring to the church at Chilvers Coton for an afternoon with Miss Beau. The walk passes a florist’s shop, crosses the canal bridge, and goes beneath the Coton Arches. Sunday especially values the fresh air and the chance to leave the workhouse, making the route itself part of the relief the outing affords.

The church visit also brings learning and pleasure into a life otherwise governed by work and discipline. Miss Beau reads Bible stories to the children, and Sunday takes particular pride in learning to read the story of baby Moses for herself. At thirteen, she again walks to All Saints Church with Daisy on a bright spring morning in March 1884. The flowers and birds along the way sharpen Sunday’s awareness of the freedom she envies, while the prospect of seeing Miss Beau, now Verity Lockett, adds to the girls’ pleasure. The same journey can therefore be both a cherished break and a reminder of how restricted their lives remain.

The churchgoing routine exists alongside the workhouse’s strict division of its residents. Men, women, boys, and girls are kept in separate sections and assigned different kinds of labour; inmates rarely come together except on Sundays, when they are allowed to attend church. For Sunday, the visit is not only religious instruction but also a temporary crossing of the institution’s ordinary boundaries. The contrast between the open-air walk and the workhouse’s controlled daily arrangements gives the setting social as well as personal meaning.

Burial and remembrance

Chilvers Coton churchyard later holds the funeral of Stephen Huntley, conducted by Reverend Edgar Lockett. A week after Stephen’s death, the service takes place on a dull, drizzly day. Mrs Spooner attends, while Sunday stays behind with Nell, who is distressed. Verity Lockett is especially upset: her daughter Phoebe had passed measles to Stephen, although Phoebe and Marigold recovered. The funeral makes the churchyard a shared setting for sorrow extending beyond Stephen’s immediate household.

The loss is felt throughout Treetops Manor. The familiar movement of Molly Worthington between kitchen and nursery, and the sounds of the babies waiting to be fed, give way to silence. Lavinia Huntley withdraws to her room and does not speak or leave it until Zillah persuades her to attend the funeral. The churchyard marks the public observance of Stephen’s death, but the household’s mourning continues beyond the service, in the silence and absence left behind.

Daisy’s grave and the return to the church

On a later visit to All Saints Church, Sunday and Tom pause at the churchyard before entering. They have brought two bunches of violets, bought from the flower-seller at the gate. Tom lays his flowers on Daisy’s grave and tells his sister that he and Sunday intend to ask Reverend Edgar Lockett to marry them. This small act places a new promise beside the memory of the sister Tom has lost; his happiness does not erase his grief, but includes Daisy in the moment.

The visit also reveals change in the workhouse children who follow the path to church. Sunday notices that they are chatting happily and appear well-fed and well-clothed, in contrast to the hardship she knew as a resident. The new housemother accompanies them, and the improvement accords with Verity Lockett’s report that meals are better and fear and bullying have receded. The setting thus connects Sunday’s memory of institutional deprivation with evidence that conditions have changed for the children who remain there.

Mothering Sunday and reconciliation

The church is full for the Mothering Sunday service, with children carrying wildflower posies to present to their mothers. Sunday sees Lavinia seated at the front beside Zillah. Encouraged by Tom, she walks up the aisle and offers Lavinia the violets she has brought, addressing her as her mother. Lavinia embraces her daughter, and Sunday cries as she rests in her mother’s arms. The moment transforms the church from a place associated with childhood routine and later funerals into the setting for a reunion.

That reconciliation gives Chilvers Coton’s church and churchyard their clearest narrative arc. Sunday first comes there as a workhouse girl whose rare outings provide fresh air, stories, and a glimpse beyond institutional separation. Later she returns as an adult who can remember Daisy, share Tom’s future, and publicly acknowledge Lavinia as her mother. Across these visits, the location gathers together the novel’s concerns with grief, altered circumstances, and family ties formed or recovered through acts of care.